A new joint venture has been set up by Nationwide Produce and QV Foods to handle onions.
Anglia Growing Partnership Ltd will take over the running ofNationwide’s onion-production site at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, with both companies continuing to market and grow the vegetable themselves while using AGP as a service provider to grade and pack.
The 50-50 venture will help reduce costs and enable efficient whole-crop marketing, according to Nationwide group managing director Tim O'Malley. 'Together we currently market just over 80,000 tonnes of onions per annum. We are also both growing onions – by next season we will have a combined growing area of 550 acres, which is further strengthened by our Richmond Farms grower group.
'By sharing this resource we will both commit to a healthy tonnage flowing through the Long Sutton site and to work together to market the whole crop effectively and efficiently.”
Peter Taylor, head of vegetables at QV Foods, added: “Following an extended period of working together, we both see this as a sensible next step to share supply chain costs to the maximum benefit of our respective customers.
'We will also reduce investment risks whilst securing vertical integration benefits in the UK onion supply chain. The initiative will bring customers closer to our own growing provenance and deliver quality and service’’.
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